


Fools and Kings

by akire_yta



Category: Skippy - Fandom
Genre: M/M, WW2 AU, manhattan project au, sds xmas fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 02:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Final moments until detonation.  Start the countdown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fools and Kings

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by sparrowsverse and sheeplikeme. all other mistakes are mine.
> 
> WW2 AU, so period-level homophobia and mentions of military activities of the period.
> 
>  **Primer** : So, Manhattan Project: they made the world's first explosive nuclear devices. Mushroom clouds ahoy-hoy! [Wikipedia is a good place to start if you've never heard of it before.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project)
> 
>  **for the prompt** : _Angst with a happy ending, smut, and a colourful cast of characters. I am a sucker for painful coming out fics that resolve well (even if certain bonds are broken), Mike being supportive and protective, Kevin being sad but strong (then happy!) and lots of family strife. RL verse, not JONAS please._ – yeah, I took a few liberties. I’m also experimenting with a different style. Hope you like it, la_fours

 

**10**

It starts at the recruiting centre in Chicago. Mike stares as the doctor stamps the corner of his form with 3-A, a different number from all the other boys – all the other men – here to enlist.

“Heart murmur, kid,” he says, not unkindly. “You're just not meant for the front.”

Mike stares at the stamp, feeling the others watching him, waiting for him to join them. But he's not allowed to go. “What do I do now?”

The doctor shrugs. “I can recommend you for desk duty. There's a lot of jobs in the Army that don't require you to put stress on your ticker.” He pats Mike's shoulder. “It's for the best, son.”

And Mike would feel like less of a coward if he didn't feel so fucking _relieved_. If the others hate him for it, they don't let it show. Bill hugs him, long limbs now encased in the olive drab that was becoming the city's uniform. “Hold down the home front ‘til we get back, Mikey.”

He leans forward, his mouth inches from Mike's ear. “I won't be here to flirt with the pretty girls for you,” he begins, whispering something else in Mike's ear, so the others can't hear. Advice for keeping his secret by himself when all the other men have gone off to fight in the war.

Mike watches them go. His secret, his guilty little secret, will, he hopes, be easier to keep now that every able bodied man has gone to the front.

 

 

 

* * *

 

**(10)**

It starts in a dusty classroom made even more spartan by the War effort. Kevin doesn't even notice the visitors at first, so engrossed in his calculations. His slide rule hums and clicks under his fingers as he works the numbers into something beautiful.

“You thought of enlisting, son?” they ask him, not unkindly, as they sit over weak coffee in an empty room. They’re big men, and in their olive drab, they fill the room. Kevin feels small and young, sitting before the as they ask their questions. “Doing your part for the War?”

Kevin swallows and looks them right in the eye, feeling guilty even though it's the truth. “My father’s health is not good, sir, and I have three brothers and a mother counting on my pay cheque I earn here. I volunteer for the Home Front, but I can't go off to Europe and leave them.” He knows that the truth doesn’t make him any less a coward.

“How about New Mexico?” they ask. “Think you can go that far?”

His friends at work send him off with their best wishes, and his family all come to watch him go. He's taking the train to the City, and then they're flying him. He's excited about that, and about finally _doing_ something. He's sad to say goodbye to his family, even if it's not for the front, but secretly, he's a little glad too.

His mother's dreams of a white picket fence will be easier to ignore once he's no longer here.

 

 

* * *

**9**

Mike resents filing, at first. But boredom drives him to start reading what he's processing, and then he starts finding it _interesting_. He learns to calculate numbers, efficiencies, necessities. He studies maps and convey routes, and learns how to get what's needed to where it's wanted.

He makes sure every dispatch concerning Bill's unit crosses his desk.

He has a billet, rather than a place in a barracks. The barracks are for real soldiers, the ones learning to wield weapons. The most dangerous thing Mike wields is a pencil.

He learns how to use it.

The widow whose spare room he’s sleeping in leaves him out supper covered with a plate. He eats mechanically, alone in his room, reading more reports, making notes until his pencil is a stub. He goes in early and leaves late and uses work to occupy the empty hours.

People take notice.

He moves with each promotion; each city, each base, takes him further from home. Mike stays wherever they put him and reads reports. He's more familiar with the streets of Paris and Berlin than he is with the neighbourhoods around each new address.

Mike gets good at the bureaucracy and tries not to care about how lonely life is away from the front.

 

 

 

* * *

 

**(9)**

Kevin is among the first to arrive. There is no base, not really. The place was originally a school, and the old blackboards still carry the faint, dusty echo of lessons. Kevin sleeps on the porch, surrounded by a dust screen and half a dozen men. Each morning, he rolls off the canvas cot he was assigned, works the worst of the kinks out of his spine, pours the sand out of his boots, and goes to work.

The numbers don't care about heat or dust or thirst or loneliness. The numbers describe the universe from the brightest star to the smallest speck. Oppenheimer himself gives them a talk that first week in the desert. Kevin's not the only one surprised to learn that they've been brought here to turn a speck into a star.

And then maybe this war might end.

Kevin’s constant companion is his slide rule. He scrawls numbers and equations endlessly across the old blackboards, chalk dust mixing with the sand that gets everywhere. The numbers dance around his head, day and night, and Kevin swims through them, constantly searching until exhaustion strikes him down.

It’s the only way he’s ever been able to sleep. At least here, he seems to be appreciated for it.

 

 

* * *

 

**8**

Mike's not stupid; he may not have all the clearances, but he can see a shape by the hole it leaves behind -- secret flights, interrogation reports, captured schematics and long letters full of impenetrable equations. They're building something, out in the desert, where no-one can see.

Something big.

On his desk, next to the letters, is the plain buff folder containing the latest troop reports for Bill's unit.

They're getting too close to the front again, too close to where too many good men have already died. Mike takes his pen and calmly makes a few small changes to the mission orders. He slots the folder back into the pile to be transmitted to the front, never missed.

The next time he looks at the big map in the War room, Bill's unit is moving away from the front and into the mountains. Cold, yes, but they grew up poor in Chicago winters. The cold will be hard, but snow is preferable to bullets.

He goes back to feeling his way slowly around the dark shape growing in New Mexico. Anything to occupy the hours.

 

 

 

* * *

 

**(8)**

Kevin writes letters to his mother every week. It feels strange after a day using letters like numbers to line them up on a page to make words.

He doesn't tell her about the numbers. He can't tell her much at all. His tend to be very short letters.

Her letters are long, several pages smelling of her perfume despite the envelope having been slit open already by the censorship office. She writes of his brothers, about how the Pastor lets them into church every day to play piano for the elderly. She writes a lot about Danielle who lives next door, who is volunteering with the Women’s Air Corps, and who looks ever so fine in her uniform. She writes about the white picket fence dream, even though they are in a War, and have always been too poor for a yard to have a fence around anyway.

Kevin sometimes wonders if she knows what he's spent half a lifetime hiding, his only secret from her before this place. It sometimes feels like her letters were her way of desperately trying to lure Kevin back to the dream she and his father had for their sons.

He writes back and asks what music Joe and Nick and Frankie performed this week, and that he misses her casseroles, and carefully doesn't say anything about the girl next door.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**7**

Mike's an aide to a General now; it makes looking after Bill easier, it gives him more pieces of the puzzles in the paperwork, but it also keeps him moving all around the country as the General inspects troops, goes to meetings, runs the War.

He’s always tired now, but there’s no time to rest.

The others who work in the offices are mainly women, only a handful of men who are either career bureaucrats recruited by the Army or the weak and crippled like himself. The women welcome him more readily, cheerful in the face of the mounting horrors of Europe and the Oriental theatre, gossiping one minute and then crying quietly the next as word of loved ones lost reaches them first.

The men either outrank him or are wary of his connection to the General. But still he hears the rumours as they share a quiet cigarette in a moment of respite. Soldiers sent to hard labour for a spell to 'make men of them.' Certain addresses on certain streets where the liquor flowed free and taboos were left at the door.

In these places, Dorothy was no lady.

Mike considers going, but Bill's whispered advice still echoes in his ear. Besides, he now files the secrets.

That meant people were watching.

Mike remembers the addresses, and the faces of the men who gave them to him, and still goes home alone.

 

 

* * *

 

**(7)**

A town, of sorts, grows up around the big old school house. A town of geeks and nerds, of people Kevin wished he'd known when he'd been alone at school, picked on and beaten up for loving numbers more than baseball.

There are some women there, beyond the wives who dared come out to build a home in the desert. The women who came to the project on their own are smart as whips, and if they don't call him out, they seem to know where he stands. They're friends, in a way, colleagues when the older men who run the show say they can be, or at least look the other way. Kevin makes connections easily, in a light, simple kind of way. They all swap penny dreadfuls and technical journals, and argue theories of numbers until the sun starts to come up again. Alone in the desert, they become their own little world.

It's inevitable that people start pairing up, despite the vague edicts not to. And not all the pairings are monogamous, or committed, or even involve one of the few single women on base.

For the first time in his life, Kevin gets offers. It takes him a while to realize, so unfamiliar he is with this strange, secret code. He blushes and stammers, but the vague sense of _wrong_ that was instilled in him young is still too strong to ignore, even in the isolation of the desert.

Kevin goes to bed every night alone.

 

 

* * *

 

**6**

They fly into sunshine, and land as the sun is setting, turning the landscape blood red. They're met by a pretty WAC with an ugly bus. She apologies about it as she lumbers the vehicle around and they set off out of Santa Fe and into the still-shimmering heat haze. Mike watches the desert scenery tumble past, all steep inclines and rubbled scree, until the darkness steals his view. He’s grateful for it when he hears the bus rattle over what feels like a treacherous bridge, and as the bus begins the slow climb up a winding series of switchbacks, Mike decides he really doesn’t want to be able to look down anyway.

The road flattens out just before the base comes into view -- a floodlit fence, a wood-walled sentry post in the middle of nowhere. The WAC has a hurried conversation with the guard who half-comes up the steps of the bus. She jerks a thumb at them, and the guard rushes to open the gate. Mike catches the General smiling smugly in the reflection of the darkened window.

Mike is just an aide; while the General gets let off at an attractive looking guesthouse, he’s led to a bunk in a barrack. He’s so tired he doesn’t care as he faceplants onto the musty blankets and doesn't wake until a blast of a car horn jerks him from his sleep. He stumbles up and out into too bright desert sunshine.

He follows his nose and the smell of food into a large...well, he was told they were going to a military base, so he guesses it's a mess, except that there are few uniforms around, and the conversation is loud. A pretty blonde woman laughs as she brushes by him; her companion is grinning infectiously. “Greta, you're incorrig....” she says, the rest of their conversation cut off by the general noise.

Mike follows them through the general flow of people, and ends up standing behind them as they chat to a dark-haired girl who looked barely old enough to be out without her parents. Mike has already learned that the WACs were usually the best-informed of anyone at a new base, and even though they’re not in uniform, Mike’s guessing that’s who these women are. If they notice him eavesdropping, they ignore it. “Cass, you're being silly,” the pretty blonde with the curls is saying with a laugh. “Besides, you know Smith will never let you requisition a new slide rule without him asking questions you don't want to answer about the fate of your old one!”

Cass laughs, and as she turns, she sees Mike watching. “New?” she asks with a sweet, friendly smile, her eyes flicking down to his chest for a second, looking for ID.

Mike makes a face. “Arrived last night. With the General’s party,” he clarifies, and sees their eyes widen slightly. “Looking for breakfast. Can you ladies help?”

“We just ate,” the blonde says apologetically. “We're just waiting on Ashlee to go get her badge before we go to work. Speaking of,” she says, her eyes tracking down his shirt. “You need your badge too. Security office is just around the corner, they’ll sort you out. Hey, Kevin?” she calls out, eyes going past Mike's shoulder.

Mike turns and freezes, shocked into stillness. His damaged heart skips a beat, and for once he doesn’t care.

Greta brushes up against him, a vague impression of perfume and softness. “New guy needs a badge, and we're already late. Think you can show him to security on your way to work?”

 

* * *

 

 

**(6)**

Kevin throws down his chalk and stares at the board, fingers buried in his hair as he tries to make sense of what he is seeing. He’d worked through the night, and his eyes are gritty with chalk dust and sleeplessness. He needed coffee and food, and fresh air, and to catch a _break_ on this problem.

Perspective. He’ss lacking perspective. Or possibly going mad in the heat.

Wiping chalk-smeared fingers on his slacks, Kevin flashed his badge at the guard by the door and heads to the PX. He can hear the noise of conversation, the first wave of the morning rush as everyone not lucky enough to have a house or a private kitchen comes together to eat.

Kevin weaves easily through the knots of people, making a beeline for the coffee pots set out on uneven trestle tables. He cradles his mug, careful not to spill a drop, as he weaves his way back to the door. He’ll go for a walk, drink his coffee, and then try the problem again.

“Hey, Kevin!” someone calls, and Kevin turns, a smile already on his face. Greta is his favourite computer - she might even have some ideas to help him solve his equation.

His smile stutters as, instead of Greta’s familiar, smiling face, Kevin looks into the most amazing eyes he has ever seen. He’s vaguely aware of Greta popping up on the edge of his peripheral vision. “New guy needs a badge, and we're already late,” she asks. “Think you can show him to security on your way to work?” Her smile has a knowing edge to it.

Kevin nods, stuttering out a fractured reply. Greta shoves the guy gently towards Kevin and vanishes. “I’m Mike,” the guy introduces himself with an easy grin.

Feelings Kevin had kept hidden all his life leap up and take over his voice. “I’m yours,” Kevin says dumbly. The guy’s eyes widened slightly, and Kevin realizes what he had just said. “If, uh, you need a guide to the security office,” he manages to stutter out.

“Just as a guide?” Mike asks, and to Kevin’s incredulous ears, he sounds almost _disappointed._. He ducks his head and grins a little grin that makes Kevin smile back.

“Let’s start with that,” Kevin answers, feeling his toes curl as the corners of Mike’s eyes crinkle, and Kevin realizes that he’s _flirting_ with a cute _guy_

“Lead on,” Mike says, bowing a little to Kevin, and Kevin feels the tingle all down his spine as he walks Mike out into the heat of the new day.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**5**

Mike has time to kill with the General in meetings he doesn’t have the clearance to attend. He knows he wouldn’t be needed until later, after the meetings are done, so he wanders through the dusty streets of the town. Los Alamos has the feel of a place that has been created overnight, and if people weren’t careful, would be swallowed by the desert just as quickly.

The burnt orange square on Mike’s badge that advertised his clearance level to the world stops him from crossing the road to the restricted parts of the town. He takes instead to waiting in the PX, nursing a cup of coffee until those men with the white badges of high-level clearance staff come off shift looking for something to eat.

The buildings they work in are guarded by armed MPs and are full of the secrets Mike's still not supposed to know. Mike can't help but smile as he spots Kevin, walking in a small group of young men who all have rolled-up shirt sleeves and chalk dust on their fingers.

Mike bites his lip as he remembers last night, finding faint chalky fingerprints on his clothes and skin from where Kevin had touched him as they had walked around the base and just _talked_ until Kevin finally had to go back to work.

Kevin sees him and changes course, guiding his entire group over to the table Mike is sitting at. Mike stands slowly, and nods a greeting to the strangers before smiling at Kevin. He's still not sure what's going on between them but quietly, secretly, even knowing how dangerous it is, he’s...hopeful.

The group is at his table now. Mike keeps his face carefully blank of his wicked thoughts as Kevin introduces the others. Kevin doesn’t give job titles or even surnames, but Mike can tell they’re scientists too. It’s something in the way they look at the world, like it’s new. Or something they want to pull apart to find the tick.

He’s read too much about this place not to have already put some of the puzzle pieces together.

One of the other geeks, Alex, nudges Kevin and there’s a moment of silent communication that ends with Kevin smiling, the corners of his eyes creasing slightly. He nods, and Alex turns to Mike with a satisfied look on his face. “Nice to meet you, Mike,” Alex says with an inscrutable grin, tugging the others away. “Maybe we’ll see you at dinner?”

And then, despite the flow of people coming and going, they’re alone. “Good day?” Mike asks.

Kevin smiles, guarded but sweet. “Yeah, but I’ve been hunched over a draftsboard all day. Want to take a walk?”

Mike smiles back and ignores the ache in his heels. “Sure.”

He was expecting to circle the central knot of buildings to the small lake, or maybe meander nearby streets. But Kevin walks them straight to a gate in the fence, out of the compound, and into the hills that surrounded Los Alamos.

 

 

* * *

 

**(5)**

 

Kevin’s spent the day arguing equations, wasting time in stupid, pointless meetings. He had planned to just escape _people_ for a while, clear his head. But then he’d seen Mike sitting there, almost like he was waiting, and being alone didn’t seem quite as appealing as being alone with Mike.

He picks an easy path, a rambling trail cut through the scrub and grass by months of scientists coming out this way, seeking solitude and a break from the War. The wind’s picking up a little, warm and dry as it sweeps in off the desert.

The scrub thins out as they follow the slope down the ridge, and Mike falls into step beside Kevin as they break from the trail and cross the stubby grass. “There’s nothing here, is there?” Mike says, staring around the empty landscape.

“Santa Fe’s a long way thataway,” Kevin says, pointing off to his right. “But yeah, just us and the coyotes.” He sees Mike flash a briefly worried look and laughs. “Don’t worry, they find humans stringy.”

Mike bites his lip, and Kevin finds himself staring. “I’m very worried,” Mike says slowly, “that you know that.”

It feels good to laugh again.

Mike’s smiling too, and Kevin wonders if it is just the rough terrain that has Mike stepping in closer and closer until their arms are touching. Kevin guides them on a long loop down and around the plateau that supports the town. Mike tells him about Chicago and D.C. and his friends on the front, and Kevin tells him of Jersey and his brothers and how they’re really the only people he left behind to come here.

The light’s fading as they turn back towards the compound, walking in easy step with each other. “Can I write to you?” Mike asks, and Kevin sees his own wary hopefulness reflected there, even in the twilight.

He smiles. “I’ll give you the PO Box address. It’s read by the censors,” Kevin warns, and he’s almost sure Mike knows he’s not referring to military secrets. “But yes; I’d love to get a letter from you.”

 

 

* * *

**4**

There’s a letter waiting for him when they return to D.C., postmarked via London, not Santa Fe. Mike keeps it tucked in his breast pocket all through debrief, and takes it back to his billet so he can read it slowly, make it last.

The paper is crinkled like it had gotten wet and then been carefully dried before being folded into its envelope. Mike is careful as he unfolds it, slow with the delicate pages. Bill’s handwriting is a series of looping slashes across the page. Mike reads slowly; he already knows half the facts of marches and encampments, but it is the details that turn it from a mission report into something that _happened_. Sisky’s boots still hurt, and Mike makes a mental note to have a chat with Lieutenant Rexha over in Supply Division, see if she could get Captain Wentz to sign off on something better for him.

Mike finishes the letter and immediately turns back to the first page to reread it again.

It takes him days to write his reply; there is so much in his life that is dull, repetitive, not worth committing to paper. What little else there is would just be redacted by the censors before it even left the country.

 _Visited a new base, met some great guys,_ he finds himself writing at the bottom of the last page. _Got a personal tour from one of the civilian staff. Kept things interesting until someone snapped their fingers for some paperwork._

When he stops by the post office the next day, he has two letters to send; one addressed to the supply station in England that sends letters on to the front. The other, much thinner envelope, is addressed to a PO box in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The corner of the envelopes are crumpled from where Mike had been clutching them. He smooths them out as best he can before he pushes them through the slot and tries to push it out of his mind.

Mike goes back to work. On his desk, Bill’s plain buff folder is joined by a pale cream one, as Mike tallies up all he knows about Los Alamos and the work they’re doing there. As the days pass, both files get thicker.

There’s an envelope waiting for him on the hall table of his billet at the end of the week. It smells of dust and secrets. He reads it, smiling, alone in his tiny, borrowed room, and he stays up late, writing a reply that ends up being longer than he expected.

The replies come back quickly, careful in their details but always with that undeniable sense of the desert.

It’s weeks before those letters are joined by one that smells of mud and cold and steel. Mike takes them both up to his room. He pauses for a moment before he opens Bill’s first. It’s written in different pens and pencils, words accumulated over time. On the bottom of the last page, in soft grey pencil, Bill had written one last note: _Just be careful, Mikey._

Mike stares at it for a long time before he opens the other envelope and breathes in the smell of a desert after rain.

* * *

 

 

**(4)**

Kevin didn’t know it rained like this in the desert, or got this cold. In the distance, thunder growled as it paced over the hills. He watches for a while, waiting to see if there was any lightning yet, before turning his attention back to the page.

Mike didn’t have much better clearance than his family, but still it was somehow _easier_ to write to him about inconsequentialities. He finishes his letter with a small anecdote about Greta and Cass’ ongoing prank war with the girls over in Supply, and slides the folded pages into an envelope. He leaves it unsealed for the censors to read, and turns his attention to his mother’s latest letter.

Her envelopes were getting thinner as the seasons turned colder, and Kevin could picture her, busy as she tried to put together a Christmas dinner with only her ration book and her ingenuity to help her.

This would be his first Christmas away from home.

 _We all miss you, my darling,_ she had written in her careful cursive script. _Danielle is back, and asked after you yesterday. I told her you were fine, and were making friends where you were._ Kevin reread that sentence, wondering what it was that made it seem so resigned. _Please tell your friends merry Christmas from us. We’ll keep Mike and Greta and Cassandra and everyone else with you in our prayers..._

Kevin almost misses her old letters, where she didn’t sound so defeated already. He even missed the sly little nudges towards Danielle. He wished he could give her a hug and tell her everything was going to be alright.

But he knew too much now, working here. He couldn’t say that without lying.

Kevin glances at Mike’s letter, still lying in its open envelope, seeking inspiration. _Dear mother,_ he writes at last. _Merry Christmas..._

 

 

* * *

 

**3**

This time, they arrive in Santa Fe a little after dawn. The town is still asleep, and the old bus is replaced by a car. The driver greets the General like an old friend, and Mike climbs awkwardly in the back, mindful of the heavy case of papers he’s been charged with.

Mike didn’t miss the driver’s questioning look as he nods towards Mike, nor the General’s tiny little shake of his head. Mike didn’t care; he already knew a lot of the secrets.

The car made the drive up feel less perilous, and Mike appreciates both the scenery and the anticipation at what was at the top of the plateau.

Kevin finds him in the PX, carefully sipping at a cup of coffee. “So, a little birdie told me that a General was coming up the mountain today for a surprise inspection,” Kevin says by way of greeting.

Mike stirs in another spoonful of precious sugar. “Not much of a surprise if even the birds know about it,” he says back, unable to stop the smile at seeing Kevin in the flesh again.

Kevin’s eyes are sparkling. “This place runs on secrets. And coffee,” he adds, reaching for a mug.

“Well then, it’s my treat,” Mike teases, just to hear Kevin’s startled laugh.

Kevin covers his mouth his hand, eyes glancing around to see who might have overheard them. Mike bites his lip and looks down to give his coffee one last, unnecessary stir. He’d stupidly forgotten that, especially here, there was always someone watching.

“So, what else did the birdie tell you?” Mike asks as the silence stretches on a little too long.

Kevin’s smile is tight, but his eyes are soft. “Not much else. Not even how long the General is staying.”

“Three days,” Mike tells him, and hopes like hell that’s not a secret. Then again, Kevin’s got clearances Mike hadn’t even heard of before he started compiling his little file.

“So what do you do here, anyway? Do you come with him just to drink our coffee?” Kevin asks as they sit down at a table a little way away from the other knots of people.

Mike shrugs, feeling a little embarrassed about his job in a way he hasn’t since Bill hit the front. “I type the letters and file the papers. So I’m not really needed until the boss is done with his meetings for the day. That’s usually after dinner.”

Kevin drags his fingertip around the lip of his mug. “So you’re free for dinner? With me?” he adds with a hopeful little smile.

Mike nods. “Does your little birdie know any good spots?”

Kevin’s smile turns into a searchlight-bright grin. “I think something can be arranged.” Under the table, Mike feels Kevin’s toes nudge his, and he nudges back as they let the conversation drift into trivialities and the PX fills up around them.

* * *

 

**(3)**

Kevin needs to finish his equations, but despite dreaming every night of the numbers, he can’t reconcile what the figures are trying to say to him.

His attention is shot anyway. He finds his eyes being dragged up to the clock over and over again as the minutes slowly crawl by. The usually familiar confines of the technical area suddenly seem claustrophobic.

Kevin snatches up a stack of equations and locks the door to his lab behind him. If he goes slow, by the time he’s done, he can go straight from the computers’ area out the gate and over to the PX.

He and Mike had agreed to meet there again tonight. In the safety of his own mind, Kevin tries out the word ‘date’ and feels a stupid smile spread across his face as he walks down the hall to the open work room full of women, pencils flashing as they work the calculations.

Greta spots him first and waves him over as she drops another set of calculations into her out-tray. Kevin sits on the guest chair and hands over his notes. “My favourite computer, what can you do with these?” he teases her as she begins to flip through his notes. While, theoretically, the computers were hired just to do rote sums, Kevin knew he wasn’t the only person in the technical area to spitball difficult problems with the girls; they did so much math, they had a knack for untangling even the thorniest problems. If the higher-ups knew, they didn’t try and stop it.

So no-one gives them so much as a second glance as they bend their heads to the problem. Greta points with her pencil at an equation halfway down the page, and it’s a measure of Kevin’s distractedness that it takes him a minute to realize he’s just transposed some integers. He groans as she laughs and makes a correction with quick, neat strokes of her pencil. “How can I ever repay you?” he asks, slumping forward to rest his chin on his arms, folded on the edge of her desk.

Greta’s smile falters. “You can be careful, darling,” she murmurs, tidying the pages even though the stack was already straight.

“Greta?” he asks, sitting up a bit.

Greta looks down at her blotter for a moment before looking back up. “You and the General’s aide. He’s...I know...please, sweetie, I want you to be happy, but you need to be discreet.”

Kevin feels like someone has just poured cold water down his back. Greta reaches for him, her fingers warm and soft on his wrist. “I’ll help, if I can, but last night? In the PX? If someone gets it in their head to destroy you, and they see something like that? That alone might be enough evidence.” Her nose wrinkles up as she sneers. “You know some people think it’s a sign of Communism. The last thing you want, here, is any doubts about your loyalty. So promise me you’ll be careful.” She sits back and smiles. “I’ll have these calculations done as soon as possible,” she says in her normal voice.

Kevin stumbles out into the warm New Mexico evening feeling cold and afraid. Mike’s smile of greeting falls as he sees Kevin’s face. “What?” he asks.

“I’ve been told to be careful,” he says flatly, and he can tell just from Mike’s expression that he knows exactly why.

 

* * *

 

**2**

Mike sits impatiently with the other staff in a tight knot. Lt Urie fiddles with the wireless, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he curses under his breath. Everyone else is just...waiting. It’s late, the windows dark, but rumours and false announcements had been coming in all day; no-one was going home until they heard whether it was true or not.

The doors to the General’s office open.

Mike’s eyes sink closed as the news is confirmed. Victory in Europe. Germany has surrendered. Someone whooped and then the whole room is laughing, crying, hugging each other, dancing in the tiny openings between the desks.

There is still a lot to do, but it’s the beginning of the end. Mike pushes his way over to a knot of officers. “Sir, what about Japan?” he asks, heedless of protocol.

Someone claps him on the shoulder as Lieutenant Weekes laughs. “Holding out, the cheeky buggers, but we’ll soon put a stop to....” He stops mid-sentence under the glare from the General, and clears his throat awkwardly. “Yes, well, here’s to VE Day!” He raises his glass and takes a long sip.

“You’ve friends on the front, right?” Colonel Bryar asks him, after shooting one final glare at his colleague. “What am I saying, we all do - you know where, son?”

“Last I heard, they were leaving France for Germany, sir,” Mike said, like he didn’t know at all times the most precise map reference available for Bill’s unit.

Bryar nods and offers him the bottle of scotch, already nearly empty. “Soon have them home.”

Mike takes the bottle into the deserted map room. The whole world at war was laid out before him. He takes a pull from the bottle before he reaches out and topples the little swastika flag onto its side over Germany. Even drinking from the bottle, it doesn’t take him long to figure out three possible routes for Bill’s unit out of Europe and back home -- he’d just have to see which transport looked like it was going to move the fastest.

Only then did he walk around to the other side of the table, to the Pacific theatre. Japan’s Rising Sun flag was still upright, planted in the map over Tokyo. Weekes had seemed pretty confident, and Mike knew the man had spent the last month commuting between D.C. and Santa Fe.

Mike wishes he had some way of contacting Kevin without the damn censors knowing, just to see if he’d heard the news, if he was okay.

If he knew what they were planning.

* * *

 

 

**(2)**

 

Greta opens the door of the little house she had in the Sundt apartments, overlooking the edge of the mesa. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and she looks thinner every time Kevin sees her. She hustles him inside. “Another party, Greta,” Kevin teases, voice tight even to his own ears.

She leads him by the arms into her cosy sitting room, already full of people. The wireless was on low, the burble of the newsreader a grim backdrop.

Kevin had heard enough about concentration camps to last him a lifetime now. He turns away from the speaker. “Kevin,” she asks softly. “Do you know if Mike’s coming back here soon?”

Kevin glances around the faces, all well-known to him now after weeks of Greta’s ‘parties.’ Unlike the soldiers on base, who had been celebrating the end of the war with unbridled passion, the scientists were grey-faced and grim -- they knew what victory over Japan might entail. “Mike,” he asks, a little more sharply than he meant to. “Or the General?”

Greta looks only a little uncomfortable. “We just wondered if you’d heard anything. About what they’re planning...you know,” her voice lowers to a mere whisper. “About the gadget?”

Kevin sits on the arm of her sofa, and Cass puts a hand on his knee in silent support. Ian, one of the machine shop technicians that Cass had been dating, sits forward as well, hands folded on his lap. It makes the room feel cut off from the madness of the world. “I know about as much as you guys do,” he admits. “We’ve been swapping letters, but you know how those are read. Even if he knew, he couldn’t tell me.” He takes a deep breath. “But he is coming back, soon. He couldn’t write dates, obviously, but...yeah, I think soon.” Kevin had been looking forward to that vague possibility, but now, with so many questions about their work hanging over them, Kevin fears the war is going to intrude and destroy even this.

 

* * *

 

**1**

Mike can see the wariness in Kevin’s eyes the next time they meet. Kevin blinks once, his tiny smile flickering before it’s gone again, and he turns back to his task. Mike dutifully follows the general across the dusty ground, away from where Kevin is working. The desert is crawling with soldiers in olive drab, and scientists with rolled-up shirt sleeves and grim expressions. Mike’s not even entirely sure he’s allowed to be there, but no one had told him no when he’d climbed into the back of the jeep, so he supposes that’s as good as permission.

The gadget, as everyone’s been calling it, looks small but heavy as it’s hoisted up onto a simple metal gantry. Mike turns away as the men lock it into place; beyond them, the desert stretches out to the horizon.

It’s like they’re at the end of the world, the last humans.

There’s a cheer, and he turns back to see the gadget sitting on its perch a hundred feet above the desert floor. Everyone’s stepping back to look at it, and off to one side, Mike hears the unmistakable sound of a flashbulb going off as someone takes a picture. The General’s busy with Oppenheimer, the two men admiring the gadget, slapping each other on the back like they’re new fathers or something.

Mike feels someone step up beside him and smiles, never taking his eyes off the gadget. “So, this is what you’ve been doing behind the barbed wire?” he asks quietly.

Kevin makes a demurring noise. “I just figured out some equations,” he says, and they’re standing close enough that Mike can feel his shoulders lift and drop in a little shrug.

“The General seems happy,” Mike notes, and feels the silence grow colder.

“The General doesn’t know what he’s got, not really,” Kevin says at last, voice pitched low and ominous. “Oppie thinks he can make him understand.”

“You don’t?” Mike asks, chest tight. He thinks of the secrets he has pieced together, the map of Japan that was now the centre of focus in the war room. He looks up at the gadget, shining in the sun.

“We had to hand over our notes,” Kevin says, a quiet sadness in him as he looks up at the tower, hand raised to shade his eyes from the sun. “And you can’t keep a perfect secret, not in this place. There are already designs and procurements. He’s up to something.”

Mike thinks of the deployment orders he saw, supply ships and specially modified planes heading to the Pacific. He shifts imperceptibly closer to Kevin, arms touching down to the wrist, as they stare in silence at what they have made.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**(1)**

 

Kevin’s not surprised to find Mike on the doorstep to his tiny apartment a little before midnight. He hustles Mike inside without comment, afraid that if they linger, someone might twitch aside a curtain and see, and say something to the wrong person.

He doubts anyone is sleeping easy tonight.

Mike turns, skin sallow under the dim light of the bare bulb hanging above the dusty kitchen. He studies Kevin for a moment, and before tugging Kevin over.

The door is locked; Kevin lets himself be reeled into a tight, fierce hug. “You okay?” Mike asks.

Kevin shudders out a sigh. “Are we doing the right thing? I thought we were, but now...the military...” he trails off as Mike squeezes him impossibly tighter. “We’ve been working on this for so long but now...” He pulls back reluctantly to look at Mike’s face. “You know, don’t you? What we’ve made?”

Mike nods, slowly.

Kevin’s expression is tortured. “Were we right to build it? I ran the numbers myself, it shouldn’t ignite the atmosphere, but the energy...it’s going to be like setting off the sun.” He’s shivering, he realizes, and clenches his fists to try and make it stop.

“If you didn’t make it, someone else would have,” Mike says quietly, fingers gently stroking up and down Kevin’s arms. “And at least, with you, I can trust you’ve considered every contingency.”

Kevin licks his lips and dares to look at Mike’s face. “Is that meant to make me feel better?” he asks softly

Mike shrugs. “Or me. Not sure.”

Kevin’s smile is small but real. Mike smiles back, feeling once again that twist in his gut and that skip in his heart he gets every time Kevin looks at him like that “You should rest, we’ve all got an early start tomorrow,” he tells Kevin, taking his hand. “Are you on the barricade?” he asks as he tugs Kevin out into his sitting room.

“No,” Kevin says as he sinks gratefully onto the tiny sofa. “You?”

Mike shakes his head. “Know any good vantage points?” He sits next to Kevin, their legs pressed tightly together.

Kevin leans slowly against Mike, giving him time to pull away. “Greta’s got a car. We were all going to drive out to Compania Hill. Wanna come?”

Mike tugs the blanket draped over the arm of the sofa over both of them, pulling it tight around their shoulders. “Of course.”

They sit through the night, arm in arm, side by side, waiting until it is time to go.

 

* * *

**0**

They drift away from the others and sit on the slope of the hillside in the cool pre-dawn darkness. Half the town is arranging itself across the hillside; the rest are at basecamp on the perimeter or watching from Los Alamos. Thousands of eyes are on the desert.

Kevin sneaks his hand into Mike’s and takes a deep breath as the sirens ring out. “That’s the twenty minute countdown,” he warns Mike. “It’s gonna get bright soon.”

Mike leans in. “Sure we’re not going to ignite the atmosphere?” He means it to be joking, but it comes out serious.

Kevin swallows. “Well, if we do, we’ll be among the first to know.” Mike sniggers, gallows humour. His fingers twine in and tighten around Kevin’s as they sit and wait.

Further along the hill, a car horn sounds and someone yells out a five minute warning. “The war’s nearly over, one way or another,” he tells Kevin as the echoes of the horn blast fade.

He hears Kevin’s sigh. “What are you planning to do after the War’s over?” Kevin asks carefully. He laughs a little before Mike can answer. “Wow, that’s weird to say -- after the War is over.” He enunciates each word with care, tasting the syllables.

Mike turns to look at him. The pre-dawn glow shows only a silhouette, but it’s enough to make Mike _want_ with a fierceness he’s never let himself feel before. “I don’t know,” Mike says with a smile, willing Kevin to hear what he’s trying to say, hoping he wants it too. “I’ve moved so much this past year, I’d like to try settling down somewhere. Make a home, something special.”

Kevin turns, and even in the dim light, this close he can see Mike’s eyelashes, the line of his hopeful smile. He swallows around the tightness in his throat. “I’ve been talking to some colleagues, they, uh, they asked me the same question.” He brushes his hair back with his free hand. “They wanted to know if, after this, I’d be interested in taking a job at the Argonne Lab. In Illinois,” he adds, looking Mike right in the eye.

Mike can’t help but grin. Illinois. “Think you might take it?” he asks carefully.

Kevin leans in. “I’ve never been to Chicago. I might get lost.”

Mike smiles, tilting his face as the tips of their noses brush together. “You need a local guide. Someone who’s good at being organized.” He feels Kevin’s breath on his lips. “Someone who’d really like to be with you.”

“I’d really like to be with you,” Kevin admits, and they lean in at the same time as the countdown reaches zero.

Their lips touch as the sirens sound and the detonation paints the desert, and everything in it, with light.


End file.
